Welcome to the latest edition of Inside Looking Out. Earlier this week, I had the opportunity to chat with Chuck Goldman, Founder and CEO of Apperian. I originally met Chuck a couple of months ago, and there’s actually an interesting story to it. We were about to sit down for our lunch meeting when I got a call informing me there was a four-alarm blaze in my building. Needless to say, I had to reschedule.
When we were able to finally reschedule, I was quickly struck by his passion for mobility – not just enterprise mobility, but the untapped potential of our lives that exists in these handheld devices.
The Enterprise Mobility Foundation: Hi Chuck. It’s great seeing you again. Thanks for taking the time to speak with me today….so here we go. The iPad is all the rage these days. What does it mean for the enterprise in terms of the adoption of tablets?
Chuck Goldman: The rate of iPad adoption in the enterprise has really surprised me. The real catalyst has been the executives who have experienced email on the larger screen and accessible anytime/anywhere through 3G. They have abandoned their BlackBerrys and have requested iPads and regular cell phones. Also – since iPad is iOS, the iPhone paved the way already in many of these companies who have made the iPhone a first-class citizen on the corporate network.
EMF: Do you see a difference between B2B apps and B2C apps in terms of a company’s enterprise mobility strategy?
CG: These same executives are playing with many downloaded apps from the App Store and starting the dialog about B2B and B2E Apps. They are asking some basic questions – can I get our SAP data on this thing, what about financials, when can I get our CRM mobile – that are turning into larger conversations around mobile strategy. This phenomenon is happening in board rooms everywhere and the pressure is coming down from the Executive Teams into the departmental level to drive innovation through the company.
EMF: With your Apple heritage, do you feel as if its model is the future of enterprise mobility (meaning a consumer device providing enterprise capabilities)?
CG: I have to admit I have had my fair share of kool aid over the past 8 years at Apple, but I truly believe in the concept of consumerization of IT and empowering the organization through better/more user focused technology. IT will always have a place but that place will be less about keeping everything locked down and limited in functionality to more ways to add innovated uses of technology that makes the company more productive. IT can be thought leaders and turn the tables by providing better tools that are more self serviceable to the end user – it’s a win win.
EMF: In that vein, is there space for the other six platforms in the enterprise or do you see some platforms being weeded out?
CG: I think we will always have a heterogeneous world in the enterprise, because part of the consumerization of IT is the power of choice and IT being able to provide for 2-3 platforms. I don’t see another BlackBerry or Windows monopoly in enterprise when it comes to mobile. Apps will be the key and I think it will come down to the platform who provides the best user experience while being the most secure/management from the backend – these will be the winners in the long run.
EMF: Let’s get back to apps for a moment. How are organizations going to be able to manage the deployment of mobile applications in this increasingly fragmented device market?
I believe HTML5 will be the standard for most table view/textual data centric enterprise apps, but single focus/powerful native apps that do things you simply can’t do in a browser are also going to be the norm. In terms of fragmentation, there is no silver bullet – not yet at least. So, enterprise will build a common back-end infrastructure and feed web services/xml/JSON etc. to these apps even though the more media rich native apps that leverage these new devices most effectively will have to be built on different OSs on the client side. Apps that start on the most full featured devices will gracefully degrade down to the lowest common denominator.
EMF: So one of my favorite topics is individual vs corporate liable devices. So much is talked about security and expense management, but where is the line drawn around application delivery and management? Can application management exist in an individually liable environment?
CG: Yes – the companies who think they are going to supply company smartphones and then lock them down to where users will be allowed ONLY company apps is in my opinion a train wreck waiting to happen. Instead, the enterprise will need to allow end users to install personal apps along side company apps. There are ways to do this securely that give IT what they need to manage the company’s apps, while users still get to have their apps that live on the device as well.
EMF: OK Chuck….one last question: What do you consider the most important thing organizations must consider in their mobile application strategy?
Make sure you have a roadmap that is flexible and don’t try to boil the ocean. Create a strategy that transforms/enhances your value proposition when it comes to always on/always connected customers when it comes to B2C apps. When it comes to B2B/E apps, look to leverage the collective knowledge of your employees when it comes to your mobile strategy – formalize a process that asks them what THEY need to untether themselves and get them to work anytime/anyplace. Leverage this critical information as decision support, align it with company objectives and use it to inform your mobile strategy for the future.
Well, there you have it. Thanks Chuck for taking the time to speak with me today. If interested, you can connect with Chuck via LinkedIn here. Do you know anyone who should be a guest here on Inside Looking Out? Drop us a line.
Great conversation, thanks for the thoughts!
I could not agree with Chuck’s statement more (see below). There is always an exception however, I don’t know any young person entering the workforce today that would accept locked down devices. I would not want to be the recruiter for that company.
CG: Yes – the companies who think they are going to supply company smartphones and then lock them down to where users will be allowed ONLY company apps is in my opinion a train wreck waiting to happen. Instead, the enterprise will need to allow end users to install personal apps along side company apps.